This passage contains the
examination of the transgressors, (Genesis 3:8-13); the sentence
pronounced upon each, (Genesis 3:14-19); and certain particulars
following thereupon, (Genesis 3:20-21).

Genesis 3:8-9
"And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?"

The voice, we conceive,
is the thunder of the approach of God and his call to Adam. The
hiding is another token of the childlike simplicity of the parents
of our race under the shame and fear of guilt. The question, "Where
art thou?" implies that the Lord was aware of their endeavor to
hide themselves from him.

Genesis 3:10-12
"And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."

Adam confesses that he
was afraid of God, because he was naked. There is an instinctive
hiding of his thoughts from God in this very speech. The nakedness
is mentioned, but not the disobedience from which the sense of it
arose. To the direct interrogatory of the Almighty, he confesses
who made him acquainted with his nakedness and the fact of his
having eaten of the forbidden fruit: "The woman" gave me of the
tree, and "I did eat."

Genesis 3:13
"And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."

The woman makes a similar
confession and a similar indication of the source of her
temptation. She has now found out that the serpent "beguiled her."
The result has not corresponded to the benefit she was led to
anticipate.

There seems not to be any
disingenuousness in either case. Sin does not take full possession
of the will all at once. It is a slow poison. It has a growth. It
requires time and frequent repetition to sink from a state of
purity into a habit of inveterate sin. While it is insensibly
gathering strength and subjugating the will, the original integrity
of the moral nature manifests a long but fading vitality. The same
line of things does not always occupy the attention. When the chain
of events linked with the act of sin does not force the attention
of the mind, and constrain the will to act a selfish part, another
train of things comes before the mind, finds the will unaffected by
personal considerations, and therefore ready to take its direction
from the reason. Hence, the consciousness of a fallen soul has its
lucid intervals, in which the conscience gives a verdict and guides
the will. But these intervals become less frequent and less
decisive as the entanglements of ever-multiplying sinful acts wind
round the soul and aggravate its bondage and its
blindness.

Genesis 3:14-15
"And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

Here begins the judgment.
Sentence is pronounced upon the serpent in the presence, no doubt,
of the man and woman. The serpent is not examined, first, because
it is a mute, unreasoning animal in itself, and therefore incapable
of judicial examination, and it was the serpent only that was
palpable to the senses of our first parents in the temptation; and,
secondly, because the true tempter was not a new, but an old
offender.

This sentence has a
literal application to the serpent. The curse (Genesis 9:25, see
the note) of the serpent lies in a more groveling nature than that
of the other land animals. This appears in its going on its belly
and eating the dust. Other animals have at least feet to elevate
them above the dust; the serpent tribe does not have even feet.
Other animals elevate the head in their natural position above the
soil: the serpent lays its head naturally on the sod, and therefore
may be said to eat the dust, as the wounded warrior bites the dust
in death. The earthworm is probably included in the description
here given of the serpent group. It goes upon its belly, and
actually does eat the dust. Eating the dust, like feeding upon
ashes, is an expression for signal defeat in every aim. The enmity,
the mode of its display, and the issue are also singularly
characteristic of the literal serpent.

It is the custom of
Scripture jurisprudence to visit brute animals with certain
judicial consequences of injuries they have been instrumental in
doing to man, especially if this has arisen through the design or
neglect of the owner, or other responsible agent (Genesis 9:5;
Exodus 21:28-36). In the present case the injury done was of a
moral, not a physical nature. Hence, the penalty consists in a
curse; that is, a state of greater degradation below man than the
other land animals. The serpent in the extraordinary event here
recorded exercised the powers of human speech and reasoning. And it
is natural to suppose that these exhibitions of intelligence were
accompanied with an attitude and a gesture above its natural rank
in the scale of creation. The effect of the judicial sentence would
be to remand it to its original groveling condition, and give rise
to that enmity which was to end in its destruction by
man.

However, since an evil
spirit must have employed the serpent, since the animal whose
organs and instincts were most adapted to its purpose, and has
accordingly derived its name from it as presenting the animal type
most analogous to its own spiritual nature, so the whole of this
sentence has its higher application to the real tempter. "Upon thy
belly shalt thou go." This is expressive of the lowest stage of
degradation to which a spiritual creature can be sunk. "Dust shalt
thou eat." This is indicative of disappointment in all the aims of
being. "I will put enmity." This is still more strictly applicable
to the spiritual enemy of mankind. It intimates a hereditary feud
between their respective races, which is to terminate, after some
temporary suffering on the part of the woman's seed, in the
destruction of the serpent's power against man. The spiritual agent
in the temptation of man cannot have literally any seed. But the
seed of the serpent is that portion of the human family that
continues to be his moral offspring, and follows the first
transgression without repentance or refuge in the mercy of God. The
seed of the woman, on the other hand, must denote the remnant who
are born from above, and hence, turn from darkness to light, and
from the power of Satan unto God.

Let us now mark the
lessons conveyed in the sentence of the serpent to our first
parents, who were listening and looking on. First. The serpent is
styled a mere brute animal. All, then, that seemed to indicate
reason as inherent in its nature or acquired by some strange event
in its history is thus at once contradicted. Second. It is declared
to be lower than any of the other land animals; as being destitute
of any members corresponding to feet or hands. Third. It is not
interrogated as a rational and accountable being, but treated as a
mere dumb brute. Fourth. It is degraded from the airs and attitudes
which may have been assumed, when it was possessed by a
serpent-like evil spirit, and falls back without a struggle to that
place of debasement in the animal kingdom for which it was
designed. Fifth. It is fated to be disappointed in its aims at
usurpation. It shall bite the dust. Sixth. it is doomed to ultimate
and utter defeat in its hostile assaults upon the seed of the
woman.

All this must have made a
deep impression on our first parents. But two things must have
struck them with special force. First, it was now evident how vain
and hollow were its pretensions to superior wisdom, and how
miserably deluded they had been when they listened to its false
insinuations. If, indeed, they had possessed maturity of
reflection, and taken time to apply it, they would have been
strangely bewildered with the whole scene, now that it was past.
How the serpent, from the brute instinct it displayed to Adam when
he named the animals, suddenly rose to the temporary exercise of
reason and speech, and as suddenly relapsed into its former
bestiality, is, to the mere observer of nature, an inexplicable
phenomenon. But to Adam, who had as yet too limited an experience
to distinguish between natural and preternatural events, and too
little development of the reflective power to detect the
inconsistency in the appearance of things, the sole object of
attention was the shameless presumption of the serpent, and the
overwhelming retribution which had fallen upon it; and,
consequently, the deplorable folly and wickedness of having been
misguided by its suggestions.

A second thing, however,
was still more striking to the mind of man in the sentence of the
serpent; namely, the enmity that was to be put between the serpent
and the woman. Up to a certain point there had been concord and
alliance between these two parties. But, on the very opening of the
heavenly court, we learn that the friendly connection had been
broken. For the woman said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did
eat." This expression indicates that the woman was no longer at one
with the serpent. She was now sensible that its part had been that,
not of friendship, but of guile, and therefore of the deepest and
darkest hostility. When God, therefore, said, "I will put enmity
between thee and the woman," this revulsion of feeling on her part,
in which Adam no doubt joined, was acknowledged and approved.
Enmity with the enemy of God indicated a return to friendship with
God, and presupposed incipient feelings of repentance toward him,
and reviving confidence in his word. The perpetuation of this
enmity is here affirmed, in regard not only to the woman, but to
her seed. This prospect of seed, and of a godly seed, at enmity
with evil, became a fountain of hope to our first parents, and
confirmed every feeling of returning reverence for God which was
beginning to spring up in their breast. The word heard from the
mouth of God begat faith in their hearts, and we shall find that
this faith was not slow to manifest itself in acts.

We cannot pass over this
part of the sentence without noticing the expression, "the seed of
the woman." Does it not mean, in the first instance, the whole
human race? Was not this race at enmity with the serpent? And
though that part only of the seed of the woman which eventually
shared in her present feelings could be said to be at enmity with
the serpent spirit, yet, if all had gone well in Adam's family,
might not the whole race have been at enmity with the spirit of
disobedience? Was not the avenue to mercy here hinted at as wide as
the offer of any other time? And was not this universality of
invitation at some time to have a response in the human family?
Does not the language of the passage constrain us to look forward
to the time when the great mass, or the whole of the human race
then alive on the earth, will have actually turned from the power
of Satan unto God? This could not be seen by Adam. But was it not
the plain import of the language, that, unless there was some new
revolt after the present reconciliation, the whole race would, even
from this new beginning, be at enmity with the spirit of evil? Such
was the dread lesson of experience with which Adam now entered upon
the career of life, that it was to be expected he would warn his
children against departing from the living God, with a clearness
and earnestness which would be both understood and felt.

Still further, do we not
pass from the general to the particular in the sentence, "He shall
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel?" Is not the seed
of the woman here individualized and matched in deadly conflict
with the individual tempter? Does not this phraseology point to
some pre-eminent descendant of the woman, who is, with the bruising
of his lower nature in the encounter, to gain a signal and final
victory over the adversary of man? There is some reason to believe
from the expression, "I have gotten a man from the Lord" (Genesis
4:1), that Eve herself had caught a glimpse of this meaning, though
she applied it to the wrong party. The Vulgate also, in what was
probably the genuine reading, "ipse" (he himself) points to
the same meaning. The reading "ipsa" (she herself) is
inconsistent with the gender of the Hebrew verb, and with that of
the corresponding pronoun in the second clause (his), and is
therefore clearly an error of the transcriber.

Lastly, the retributive
character of the divine administration is remarkably illustrated in
the phrase. The serpent, in a wily but dastardly spirit, makes the
weaker sex the object of his attack. It is the seed of the woman
especially that is to bruise his head. It is singular to find that
this simple phrase, coming in naturally and incidentally in a
sentence uttered four thousand years, and penned at least fifteen
hundred years, before the Christian era, describes exactly and
literally Him who was made of woman without the intervention of
man, that He might destroy the works of the devil. This clause in
the sentence of the tempter is the first dawn of hope for the human
family after the fall. We cannot tell whether to admire more the
simplicity of its terms, the breadth and comprehensiveness of its
meaning, or the minuteness of its application to the far-distant
event which it mainly contemplates.

The doom here pronounced
upon the tempter must be regarded as special and secondary. It
refers to the malignant attack upon man, and foretells what will be
the issue of this attempt to spread disaffection among the
intelligent creation. And it is pronounced without any examination
of the offender, or investigation of his motives. If this had been
the first offence against the majesty of heaven, we humbly conceive
a solemn precognition of the case would have taken place, and a
penalty would have been adjudicated adequate to the magnitude of
the crime and analogous to the punishment of death in the case of
man. The primary act of defiance and apostasy from the Creator must
have been perpetrated without a tempter, and was, therefore,
incomparably more heinous than the secondary act of yielding to
temptation. Whether the presence of the tempter on earth intimates
that it was the place of his abode in a state of innocence, or that
he visited it because he had heard of the creation of man, or that
he was there from some altogether different reason, is a vain and
unprofitable inquiry.

Genesis 3:16
"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."

The sentence of the woman
(Genesis 3:16) consists of three parts: the former two regard her
as a mother, the last as a wife. Sorrow is to be multiplied in her
pregnancy, and is also to accompany the bearing of children. This
sorrow seems to extend to all the mother's pains and anxieties
concerning her offspring. With what solicitude she would long for a
manifestation of right feeling toward the merciful God in her
children, similar to what she had experienced in her own breast!
What unutterable bitterness of spirit would she feel when the
fruits of disobedience would discover themselves in her little
ones, and in some of them, perhaps, gather strength from year to
year!

The promise of children
is implicitly given in these two clauses. It came out also
incidentally in the sentence of the serpent. What a wonderful
conception is here presented to the minds of the primeval pair!
Even to ourselves at this day the subject of race is involved in a
great deal of mystery. We have already noticed the unity of the
race in its head. But the personality and responsibility of
individuals involve great and perplexing difficulties. The descent
of a soul from a soul is a secret too deep for our comprehension.
The first man was potentially the race, and, so long as he stands
alone, actually the whole race for the time. His acts, then, are
those not merely of the individual, but of the race. If a single
angel were to fall, he falls alone. If the last of a race were to
fall, he would in like manner involve no other in his descent. But
if the first of a race falls, before he has any offspring, the race
has fallen. The guilt, the depravity, the penalty, all belong to
the race. This is a great mystery. But it seems to follow
inevitably from the constitution of a race, and it has clear
evidences of its truth both in the facts and the doctrines of the
Bible.

When we come to view the
sin of our first parents in this light, it is seen to entail
tremendous consequences to every individual of the race. The single
transgression has involved the guilt, the depravity, and the death,
not only of Adam, but of that whole race which was in him, and thus
has changed the whole character and condition of mankind throughout
all time.

In the instructions going
before and coming after are found the means of training up these
children for God. The woman has learned that God is not only a
righteous judge, but a forbearing and merciful Father. This was
enough for her at present. It enabled her to enter upon the journey
of life with some gleams of hope amidst the sorrows of the family.
And in the experience of life it is amazing what a large proportion
of the agreeable is mingled with the troubles of our fallen race.
The forbearance and goodness of God ought in all reason and
conscience to lead us back to a better feeling toward
him.

The third part of her
sentence refers to her husband - "Thy desire shall be to thy
husband, and he shall rule over thee." This is evidently a piece of
that retributive justice which meets us constantly in the
administration of God. The woman had taken the lead in the
transgression. In the fallen state, she is to be subject to the
will of her husband. "Desire" does not refer to sexual desire in
particular. (Genesis 4:7) It means, in general, "turn,"
determination of the will. "The determination of thy will shall be
yielded to thy husband, and, accordingly, he shall rule over thee."
The second clause, according to the parallel structure of the
sentence, is a climax or emphatic reiteration of the first, and
therefore serves to determine its meaning. Under fallen man, woman
has been more or less a slave. In fact, under the rule of
selfishness, the weaker must serve the stronger. Only a spiritual
resurrection will restore her to her true place, as the help-meet
for man.

Genesis 3:17-19
"And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

The keyword in the
sentence of the man is the "soil." The curse (Genesis 9:25, see the
note) of the soil is the desire of the fruit trees with which the
garden was planted, and of that spontaneous growth which would have
rendered the toil of man unnecessary. The rank growth of thorns and
thistles was also a part of the curse which it occasioned to man
when fallen. His sorrow was to arise from the labor and sweat with
which he was to draw from the ground the means of subsistence.
Instead of the spontaneous fruits of the garden, the herb of the
field, which required diligent cultivation, was henceforth to
constitute a principal part of his support. And he had the dreary
prospect before him of returning at length to the ground whence he
was taken. He had an element of dust in him, and this organic frame
was eventually to work out its own decay, when apart from the tree
of life.

It is to be observed that
here is the first allusion to that death which was the essential
part of the sentence pronounced on the fallen race. The reasons of
this are obvious. The sentence of death on those who should eat of
the forbidden fruit had been already pronounced, and was well known
to our first parents. Death consisted in the privation of that life
which lay in the light of the divine countenance, shining with
approving love on an innocent child, and therefore was begun on the
first act of disobedience, in the shame and fear of a guilty
conscience. The few traits of earthly discomfort which the
sentences disclose, are merely the workings of the death here
spoken of in the present stage of our existence. And the execution
of the sentence, which comes to view in the following passage, is
the formal accomplishment of the warning given to the transgressor
of the divine will.

In this narrative the
language is so simple as to present no critical difficulty. And, on
reviewing the passage, the first thing we have to observe is, that
the event here recorded is a turning-point of transcendent import
in the history of man. It is no less than turning from confidence
in God to confidence in his creature when contradicting him, and,
moreover, from obedience to his express and well-remembered command
to obedience to the dictates of misguided self-interest. It is
obvious that, to the moral character of the transaction, it is of
no consequence who the third party was who dared to contradict and
malign his Maker. The guilt of man consists simply in disobeying
the sole command of his beneficent Creator. The only mitigating
circumstance is the suggestion of evil by an external party. But
the more insignificant the only ostensible source of temptation,
the more inexcusable the guilt of man in giving way to
it.

This act altered
fundamentally the position and character of man. He thereby
descended from innocence to guilt in point of law, and at the same
time from holiness to sin in point of character. Tremendous was the
change, and equally tremendous the consequence. Death is, like most
scriptural terms, a pregnant word, and here to be understood in the
full compass of its meaning. It is the privation, not of existence,
as is often confusedly supposed, but of life, in all its plenitude
of meaning. As life includes all the gratifications of which our
human susceptibilities are capable, so death is the privation of
all the sources of human enjoyment, and among them of the physical
life itself, while the craving for ease and the sense of pain
retain all their force in the spiritual part of our nature. These
poignant emotions reach their highest pitch of intensity when they
touch the conscience, the tenderest part of our being, and forebode
the meeting of the soul, in its guilty state, with a just and holy
God.

This event is real. The
narrative expresses in its strongest terms its reality. The event
is one of the two alternatives which must follow from the preceding
statements concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
and affords an explanation of their nature. It is no less essential
to account for what follows. The problem of the history and
condition of man can only be solved by this primeval fact.
Conscience still remains an imperishable monument, on the one hand,
of his having been formed after a perfect model; and, on the other,
of his having fallen from his high estate. And all the facts of his
history carry up his fall as far as the traditions of human memory
reach.

And the narrative here is
a literal record of the details of this great event. So far as
regards God and man, the literality has never been questioned by
those who acknowledge the event to be real. Some, however, have
taken the serpent to be, not a literal, but a figurative serpent;
not an animal, but a spiritual being. The great dragon, indeed, is
identified with "the ancient serpent called the devil and Satan."
And hence we know that a being of a higher nature than the mere
animal was present and active on this occasion. And this spiritual
being was with great propriety called the serpent, both from its
serpentine qualities and from choosing the serpent as the most
suitable mask under which to tempt our first parents. But we cannot
thence infer that a literal serpent was not employed in the
temptation. The serpent is said to be "more subtle than any beast
of the field." First. The obvious meaning of this is, that it was
itself a beast of the field.

Thus, Joseph, whom Israel
loved "more than all his children," was one of his children
(Genesis 37:8). He that was "higher than any of the people," was
himself one of the people (2 Samuel 9:2). Second. If the serpent be
here figurative, and denote a spirit, the statement that it was
subtle above all the beasts of the field is feeble and inadequate
to the occasion. It is not so, that man is distinguished from the
other animals. In much more forcible language ought the old serpent
to be distinguished from the unreasoning brute. Third. We have seen
a meetness in a being of flesh, and that not superior, or even
equal to man, being permitted to be employed as the medium of
temptation. Man was thereby put at no disadvantage. His senses were
not confounded by a supersensible manifestation. His presence of
mind was not disturbed by an unusual appearance. Fourth. The
actions ascribed to the tempter agree with the literal serpent.
Wounding the heel, creeping on the belly, and biting the dust, are
suitable to a mere animal, and especially to the serpent. The only
exception is the speaking, and, what is implied in this, the
reasoning. These, however, do not disprove the presence of the
literal serpent when accompanied with a plain statement of its
presence. They only indicate, and that to more experienced
observers than our first parents, the presence of a lurking spirit,
expressing its thoughts by the organs of the serpent.

It may be thought strange
that the presence of this higher being is not explicitly noticed by
the sacred writer. But it is the manner of Scripture not to
distinguish and explain all the realities which it relates, but to
describe the obvious phenomena as they present themselves to the
senses; especially when the scope of the narrative does not require
more, and a future revelation or the exercise of a sanctified
experience will in due time bring out their interpretation. Thus,
the doings of the magicians in Egypt are not distinguished from
those of Moses by any disparaging epithet (Exodus 7:10-12). Only
those of Moses are greater, and indicate thereby a higher power.
The witch of Endor is consulted, and Samuel appears; but the
narrative is not careful to distinguish then and there whether by
the means of witchcraft or by the very power of God. It was not
necessary for the moral training of our first parents at that early
stage of their existence to know who the real tempter was. It would
not have altered the essential nature of the temptation, of the
sentence pronounced on any of the parties, or of the hopes held out
to those who were beguiled.

This brings into view a
system of analogy and mutual relation pervading the whole of
Scripture as well as nature, according to which the lower order of
things is a natural type of the higher, and the nearer of the more
remote. This law displays itself in the history of creation, which,
in the creative work of the six days, figures to our minds, and, as
it were, lays out in the distance those other antecedent processes
of creative power that have intervened since the first and absolute
creation; in the nature of man, which presents on the surface the
animal operations in wonderful harmony with the spiritual functions
of his complex being; in the history of man, where the nearer in
history, in prophecy, in space, in time, in quality, matter, life,
vegetative and animate, shadow forth the more remote. All these
examples of the scriptural method of standing on and starting from
the near to the far are founded upon the simple fact that nature is
a rational system of things, every part of which has its
counterpart in every other. Hence, the history of one thing is, in
a certain form, the history of all things of the same
kind.

The serpent is of a
crafty instinct, and finds, accordingly, its legitimate place at
the lowest step of the animal system. Satan seeks the opportunity
of tempting Adam, and, in the fitness of things, turns to the
serpent as the ready medium of his assault upon human integrity. He
was limited to such a medium. He was not permitted to have any
contact with man, except through the senses and in the way of
speech. He was also necessitated to have recourse to the serpent,
as the only creature suited to his purpose.

The place of the serpent
in the scale of animals was in keeping with the crookedness of its
instinct. It was cursed above all cattle, since it was inferior to
them in the lack of those limbs which serve for rising, moving, and
holding; such as legs and arms. This meaning of cursed is familiar
to Scripture. "Cursed is the ground for thy seed" (Genesis 3:17).
It needed the toil of man to repress thorns and thistles, and
cultivate plants more useful and needful to man. "This people who
knoweth not the law are cursed" (John 7:49). This is a relative use
of the word, by which a thing is said to be cursed in respect of
its failing to serve a particular end. Hence, the serpent's
condition was a fit emblem of the spiritual serpent's punishment
for its evil doings regarding man.

Through the inscrutable wisdom of the
Divine Providence, however, it was not necessary, or may not have
been necessary, to change in the main the state of the natural
serpent or the natural earth in order to carry out the ends of
justice. The former symbolized in a very striking manner the
helplessness and disappointment of the enemy of man. The latter
exacted that labor of man which was the just consequence of his
disobedience. This consequence would have been avoided if he had
continued to be entitled to the tree of life, which could no doubt
have been propagated beyond its original bounds. But a change in
the moral relation of the heart toward God brings along with it in
the unsearchable ways of divine wisdom a change as great in the
bearing of the events of time on the destiny of man. While the
heart is with God, all things work together for good to us. When
the heart is estranged from him, all things as inevitably work
together for evil, without any material alteration in the system of
nature.

We may even ascend a step
higher into the mysteries of providence; for a disobedient heart,
that forms the undeserving object of the divine compassion, may be
for a time the unconscious slave of a train of circumstances, which
is working out its recovery from the curse as well as the power of
sin through the teaching of the Divine Spirit. The series of events
may be the same in which another is floating down the stream of
perdition. But to the former these events are the turning points of
a wondrous moral training, which is to end in reconciliation to God
and restoration to his likeness.

A race, in like manner,
that has fallen from communion with God, may be the subject of a
purpose of mercy, which works out, in the providence of God, the
return of some to his home and love, and the wandering of others
away further and further into the darkness and misery of enmity
with God.

And though this system of
things is simple and uniform in the eyes of the only wise God, yet
to human view parts of it appear only as special arrangements and
retributions, exactly meeting the case of man and serving for his
moral education. No doubt they are so. But they are also parts of a
constant course of nature, pursued with undeviating regularity, yet
ordered with such infallible wisdom as to accomplish at the same
time both general and special ends. Hence, without any essential
change in the serpent's natural instincts, it serves for a striking
monument of the defeat and destruction of the devil and his works.
The ground, without any change in its inherent nature, but merely
by the removal, it may be, of the tree of life, is cursed to man,
as it demands that toil which is the mark of a fallen
race.

The question of miracles,
or special interpositions of the divine will and power which cross
the laws of nature, is not now before us. By the very definition of
miracles they transcend the laws of nature; that is, of that system
of events which is known to us by observation. But it does not
follow that they transcend a higher law of the divine plan, which
may, partly by revelation and partly even by a deeper study of
ourselves and things around us, be brought to light. By the
investigations of geology we seem compelled to acknowledge a
succession of creations at great intervals of time, as a law of the
divine procedure on our globe. But, thousands of years before
geology was conceived, one such creation, subsequent to the great
primal act by which the universe was called into existence, was
made known to us by divine revelation. And beside periodical
miracle, we find recorded in the Book of Revelation a series of
miracles, which were performed in pursuance of the divine purpose
of grace toward the fallen race of man. These are certainly above
nature, according to the largest view of it which has ever been
current among our philosophers. But let us not therefore imagine
that they are above reason or grace - above the resources and
determinations of the divine mind and will concerning the
development of the universe.

Genesis 3:20
"And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living."

This verse and the next
one record two very significant acts consequent upon the judgment:
one on the part of Adam, and another on the part of God.

The man here no doubt
refers to two expressions in the sentences he had heard pronounced
on the serpent and the woman. "He," the seed of the woman, "shall
bruise thy head." Here it is the woman who is to bear the seed. And
this seed is to bruise the serpent's head; that is, in some way to
undo what had been done for the death of man, and so re-invest him
with life. This life was therefore to come by the woman. Again, in
the address of the judge to the woman he had heard the words, "Thou
shalt bear children." These children are the seed, among whom is to
be the bruiser of the serpent's head, and the author of "life". And
in an humbler, nearer sense, the woman is to be the mother of
children, who are the living, and perpetuate the life of the race
amid the ravages which death is daily committing on its individual
members. These glimmerings of hope for the future make a deep
impression upon the father of mankind. He perceives and believes
that through the woman in some way is to come salvation for the
race. He gives permanent expression to his hope in the significant
name which he gives to his wife. Here we see to our unspeakable
satisfaction the dawn of faith - a faith indicating a new beginning
of spiritual life, and exercising a salutary influence on the will,
faintly illuminating the dark bosom of our first parent. The mother
of mankind has also come to a better mind. The high and holy Spirit
has in mercy withdrawn the cloud of misconception from the minds of
both, and faith in the Lord and repentance have sprung up in their
new-born souls.

Genesis 3:21
"Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them."

As Genesis 3:20 records
an instance of humble, apprehending faith in the divine word, so
here we have a manifest act of mercy on the part of God, indicating
the pardon and acceptance of confessing, believing man, rejoicing
in anticipation of that future victory over the serpent which was
to be accomplished by the seed of the woman. This act is also
suitable to the present circumstances of man, and at the same time
strikingly significant of the higher blessings connected with
restoration to the divine favor. He had discovered his nakedness,
and God provides him with a suitable covering. He was to be exposed
to the variations of climate, and here was a durable protection
against the weather. But far more than this. He had become morally
naked, destitute of that peace of conscience which is an
impenetrable shield against the shame of being blamed and the fear
of being punished; and the coats of skin were a faithful emblem and
a manifest guarantee of those robes of righteousness which were
hereafter to be provided for the penitent in default of that
original righteousness which he had lost by transgression. And,
finally, there is something remarkable in the material out of which
the coats were made. They were most likely obtained by the death of
animals; and as they do not appear yet to have been slain for food,
some have been led to conjecture that they were offered in
sacrifice - slain in prefiguration of that subsequent availing
sacrifice which was to take away sin. It is the safer course,
however, to leave the origin of sacrifice an open question.
Scripture does not intimate that the skins were obtained in
consequence of sacrifice; and apart from the presumption derived
from these skins, it seems to trace the origin of sacrifice to the
act of Habel recorded in the next chapter.

This leads us to a law,
which we find frequently exhibited in Sacred Scripture, that some
events are recorded without any connection or significance apparent
on the surface of the narrative, while at the same time they
betoken a greater amount of spiritual knowledge than we are
accustomed to ascribe to the age in which they occurred. The bare
fact which the writer states, being looked at with our eyes, may
have no significance. But regarded, as it ought to be, with the
eyes of the narrator, cognizant of all that he has to record up to
his own time, it becomes pregnant with a new meaning, which would
not otherwise have been discovered. Even this, however, may not
exhaust the import of a passage contained in an inspired writing.
To arrive at the full sense it may need to be contemplated with the
eyes of the Holy Spirit, conscious of all that is to become matter
of revelation to the end of time. It will then stand forth in all
the comprehensiveness of meaning which its relation to the whole
body of revealed truth imparts, and under the guise of an everyday
matter-of-fact will convey some of the sublimest aspects of divine
truth. Hence, the subsequent scripture, which is the language of
the Holy Spirit, may aid us in penetrating the hidden meaning of an
earlier part of revelation.

God is the Prime Mover in
this matter. The mercy of God alone is the source of pardon, of the
mode in which he may pardon and yet be just, and of the power by
which the sinner may be led to accept it with penitence and
gratitude. In the brevity of the narrative the results only are
noted; namely, the intimation and the earnest of pardon on the side
of God, and the feelings and doings of faith and repentance on the
side of the parents of mankind. What indications God may have given
by the impressive figure of sacrifice or otherwise of the penalty
being paid by another for the sinner, as a necessary condition of
forgiveness, we are not here informed, simply because those for
whom a written record was necessary would learn it more fully at a
subsequent stage of the narrative. This suggests two remarks
important for interpretation: First. This document is written by
one who omits many things done and said to primeval man, because
they are unnecessary for those for whom he writes, or because the
principles they involve will come forward in a more distinct form
in a future part of his work.

This practice speaks for
Moses being not the mere collector, but the composer of the
documents contained in Genesis, out of such preexistent materials
as may have come to his hand or his mind. Second. We are not to
import into the narrative a doctrine or institution in all the
development it may have received at the latest period of
revelation. This would be contrary to the manner in which God was
accustomed to teach man. That concrete form of a great principle,
which comported with the infantile state of the early mind, is
first presented. The germ planted in the opening, fertile mind,
springs forth and grows. The revelations and institutions of God
grow with it in compass and grandeur. The germ was truth suited for
babes; the full-grown tree is only the same truth expanded in the
advancing development of people and things. They equally err who
stretch the past to the measure of the present, and who judge
either the past or the future by the standard of the present.
Well-meaning but inconsiderate critics have gone to both
extremes.